Evaluation of the Clinical Outcomes of Cyclosporine Short Infusion Versus Continuous Infusion Postallogenic Stem Cell Transplantation

Cyclosporin A (CsA) exhibits a narrow therapeutic index and large inter-individual variation in pharmacokinetics. Two intermittent and 24-h continuous infusions (CI) are both commonly used regimens in hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), with no universal consensus. The objective of this study was to assess whether CsA as a 2-h, twice-daily intravenous infusion (2 h/12 h) is non-inferior to 22 h CI every 24 h (22 h-CI/24 h) in terms of acute graft-versus-host disease (aGVHD) incidence and adverse events in allogeneic HSCT adult patients.

An open-label randomized trial recruited 31 allogeneic HSCT patients to receive the 2 h/12 h or 22 h-CI/24 h regimen. The primary outcomes were the incidence of aGVHD and CsA-related adverse events. The secondary outcomes included the correlation between the time concentration and area under the concentration–time curve (AUC) of 2 h/12 h versus 22 h-CI/24 h regimens.

Six (19.4%) patients developed aGVHD. There was no statistically significant difference between the two groups concerning the incidence of aGVHD (13.3% in 2 h/12 h vs. 25% in 22 h-CI/24 h; p = 0.359). The distribution of different aGVHD types (p = 0.20) and mortality (p = 0.9) were not significantly different between the two groups. The two groups did not differ at any time with respect to AUCs, nephrotoxicity, hepatotoxicity, or electrolyte disturbance.

The study suggested that the 2 h/12 h regimen is non-inferior to the conventional regimen (22 h CI/24 h) in terms of aGVHD incidence and adverse events. Further research is necessary to validate these findings and to guide practice, considering the small sample size of this study.

ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT04575779 with initial release on 19 September 2020-Retrospectively registered, https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT04575779.